Snowdonia

[Ao1]

I’m far from an expert and Snowdonia is by all accounts a complex geological place to start learning, however that makes it a fascinating and special place. It’s a jumbled mix of volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic rock.

Here is a photo of fossilised sea floor 700m up close to a synclinal fold. There is another example of fossilised sea floor around 7km away at an altitude of around 300m.



Not far from the first photo at the top of the mountain there is a mass of scattered volcanic rock. One theory is that it was rock shattered by extreme weather that was left exposed during the ice age and the other is that is was dumped when the ice retreated.

 

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[Ao1]

Different mountain, but not too far away there is an interesting quartzite banding. Not sure if that formed horizontally of vertically to its current position.



There is a separate rock outcrop nearby with lots of quartzite in it, but it has not bonded well to the adjoining rock and lots of rocks have become detached.



And on the back side of the rock outcrop there is this.

 

[Tpmetal]

very cool! and welcome

 

[Ao1]

Very close to the fossilised sea bed and beneath it, extrusive igneous polygonal formed rock columns.



And Snowdon itself. 1,085m, but this range was once as high at the Himalaya's. Here you can see the horse shoe glacial breakout.



And another glacial breakout on the other side of Snowdon.



From another mountain in the range, a glacial valley.



Glacial scarred bedrock.



Not Snowdonia, but within eyesight. Parys mountain copper mine. It was the largest copper mine in world in the 16th century. A lot of the copper was used to line timber battle ship hulls to stop shipworm, barnacles and marine weeds and make them faster. There are still 6 million tonnes of copper and tin below the surface but too deep to make it economical to mine.